The community of Pulse artists is as eclectic as it comes. By accident or opportunity we’ve gathered a cross section of mediums, themes, and personalities that we feel represents the inherent talent and diversity that Manitoba has to offer. But don’t take our word for it. Meet the Artists, read their bios, and enjoy their works...

Garry Budyk

As a naturalist, a birder, and photographer, the diverse landscapes of Manitoba are my home. I’m drawn to the dramatic skies framing prairies, marsh, lakes, and rugged wilderness. Within this vista I try to capture a moment and define an historic structure, a remembrance of the past or a furtive natural inhabitant. This is my tribute and devotion to our shrinking natural environment.

Nature, music, and colour are my inspiration and palette. Using nature as my composition, I play with the rhythms and harmonies of line and texture to explore a theme and its abstractions. My colours verge on the surreal. Paintings become personally meaningful when they combine a simplicity and directness while alluding to the spiritual.

In contrast to my reflective nature, my paintings explode in extravagant strokes and textures using both brush and palette knife. An ordinary cityscape is woven with skewed lines, distorted images, and layered acrylics, blending a scene of interest and excitement. I feel an urgency to quickly bring the elements together and make my statement, but I want the viewer to meander, contemplate, and find delight in the commonplace.See Cindy's bio and work​

Leslie Franklin

I am fascinated by discovering the potential of watercolour and ink on diverse surfaces. My backdrops are a blend of vibrant colour and fluid abstractions that I can merely guide as dyes disperse and mingle into watery forms. Slowly my shapes and figures emerge from the whimsy to focus attention and expose the interplay between the organically unrestrained and realistic.

Not one to be shy, I’m equally captivated by interpreting the expanse of a natural panorama or the recesses of an urban vanishing point. I quiet the compositional intricacies by simplifying the rudimentary shapes. I use the density and texture of oil to capture a second look and hope to take a passerby on a stroll.

As an artist, gallery director, educator, and art consultant, my palette is the art community. It encompasses and energizes my creative craving. Through acrylics, mixed media and alcohol inks, my expressionist abstracts explore both my reflections on the past and the emergence of future.​​​​

My drawings, paintings, and photographs are a chronicle of my world travels and a representation of the special places and unexpected moments I have happened upon. Beauty is discovered in simplicity and its abstractions. It has been a diverse and personal journey, but I try to capture our shared aspiration of humanity and love.​

My watercolours are a collaboration. I create a mood, then add a few shapes to support a theme, then figures to add life and motion. Finally with a colour, a feature, or a lure I invite viewers into the shadows and perspective of everyday life to evoke their own meaningful story separate from my own. It’s a simple and elusive process. The scene may or may not actually exist. The story becomes the only reality.

The prairie landscape is both my home and inspiration. The transformation of seasons, weather, and light enliven my canvases. Acrylic textures and shapes wrapped in a luminescent glow bring me delight. Never flat or static, the marriage of earth and sky are my meditation and an invitation to experience the infinite.

My home is now Winnipeg, but my influences are rooted in the interior of British Columbia. My acrylics are a distillation of organic elements, vibrant colours, the fluid motion of nature, and the tranquility of my youth. I often use water to articulate a mood, but calm reflection and quiet observation are the true composers of my work.

As an artist, I am experimental by design and a risk taker by accident. Not limited by medium, I use the inspiration of divergent objects and apparatus to create imponderable problems on canvas that slowly resolve, organize, and reveal the harmony between shape, colour, and texture. Relinquishment of control is the magic. I challenge the viewer to interpret for themselves.​

Through my mediums of watercolour and acrylics, I borrow stylized shapes from music, nature, and local urban skylines to render a contemporary representation. I use strong lines and a limited palette to distill the elements and elicit iconic compositions. I pursue the balance between abstraction and unity.​